What happens when you shoot an ork with a lasgun 100 times? nothing What do you call a lasgun with a lasersight? twin-linked Also, i think i've played both parts of the demo through at least 6 times each now.
Tutorial - Your about to go through training when you get breached and the captain says "GRAB YOUR FLASHLIGHTS MEN" as they proceed to pointlessly shoot at a confused hormagaunt, as then you decide to throw the gun at it which did more damage than shooting with it.
cale42 I think the Imperial Guard game would better off as a blend between real time squad tactics and FPS, like the Brothers in Arms series. That way we don't have over the top-lore breaking moments of some cannon fodder with a name-tag becoming a near unbeatable one man apocalypse, tearing through chaos marines, greater daemons, orks, necrons and big tyranids like any of those would do to guardsmen.
+cale42 If you were to do an Imperial Guard game, you'd have to be a Kasrkin, and your standard weapon would need to be a Hellgun or Hotshot Lasgun and everything would go up from there. Otherwise, it would be a very, very short game.
Man, I so much necroposter, but hey, ONE lasgun can rip off a human arm, if hit without proper cover or armor. It's only weak if we compare it to other races big guys, between human it's a perfect weapon
If you think about it, if lasguns are just laser pointers... what happens if you combine the beams of 50 laser pointers? ...Seriously, what would happen? I have, like, 50 in my garage and there's this one neighbor kid who's been pissing me off lately...
The demo NPCs did no damage. In the full game, an Imperial Guard NPC can kill an Ork in about 4-5 hits (they fire slower, though) on the highest difficulty.
We must realize that this was only three guardsmen. I’d say this is canonical weakness, and that if it were nine guardsmen, the orks would’ve fallen faster.
Friendly NPC weapons routinely demonstrate complete ineffectiveness, because the plot requires it. It happens in Call of Duty, Halo, Space Marines, etc, etc. Real Lasguns (ok, they don´t really exist, but bear with me) are not to be fucked with. The Lasgun uses a small portable capacitor power pack to produce a focused pinpoint laser beam which is strong enough to take an ordinary human arm off with one shot.
If the Lasgun appeared in other Sci-Fi universes, everyone the Guardsman would be fighting - such as Stormtroopers - would want these weapons, given how in comparison to Blaster Rifles in Star Wars, Lasguns are far more accurate, possess a faster projectile speed, and a greater impact force if they can dismember unprotected human limbs as the lore suggests. But given how over the top everything in 40k is, the Lasgun is only useful in massive numbers, much like how single-shot Muskets in our time were useless on the battlefield if the numbers behind the rifles weren't up to snuff for a volley line formation.
Unfortunately, The normal humans are usually the ones using lasguns. Eldar flip and bob around, making amassed fire almost necessary to even hit them, Orks are like onions, they have layers, Chaos Marines are... just what they are, Tau field all their infantry with sniper grade weapons, Tyranids use the Guard’s own tactic against it. They usually don’t even send out a full assault of purely infantry anyway, Space Marine forgot to give them their officers and such.
The stupidest part is how lasguns, that can easily blow off limbs and make huge hole in concrete, are portrayed as ineffective and weak flashlights, while chainswords are portrayed as powerful, when it's literally just chainsaws with different handles, wielded by overgrown men. In case you don't know, chainsaws are really bad at cutting flesh and even clothes, always getting stuck, and completely useless against actual armor. Extra strength will not help.
@brandon77091 In fluff and in the tabletop, Lasguns count as rapid fire weapons. They can be dialed down to use multiple, low impact shots, like seen here, or they can be charged to use single, high power beams, like in Dawn of War or the Gaunt's Ghosts Novels.
@Giantspycrab It depends on the range. Too far away and it sears your skin and flesh. Closer up like, 50 feet, and it can burn a hole through your guts. It just doesn't work very well on orks, who are immune to superficial wounds and power amour that is made of ceramite
@DomEReapeR In the 'fluff', lasguns are astonishingly powerful (not even when they're put on the 'full power' setting). A single shot will blow someone's limb off.
Its pretty hilarious, the lasgun has the power to shoot an ordinary man's arm off and is able to shoot through several layers of wall but it is still one of the weakest weapons in the imperium.
@TheOwlslayer Just like that in the Table Top game as well, except the squad limit is doubled to like 30. 2 or 3 get killed per shot and normally the entire squad is dead within one turn.
Actually, canon-wise, the lasgun is a very powerful weapon. In many books about Imperial Guardsmen, you often find a part where a lasgun will punch through power armor. The problem isn't with the weapon, it's with the shooter. If all guardsmen were trained to be elite marksmen, the Imperium wouldn't need to worry about being beset on all fronts. In Gaunt's Ghosts, a Vitrian Dragoon killed an Iron Warrior in one shot, using a full powered lasgun. Boom headshot is applicable there.
@Antigan15th to be fair, the guard in that game held out against superior numbers for 3 weeks or so before the soace marines got there. there were also never more than 7 or so guardsmen on screen at a time. guardsmen only work in large groups.
True, but lasguns have crappy strenght and no armour penetration, so it's often the case that there's no wounds at all. It's like they were all given lasertag rifles, as a joke.
PotatoPatato 5 guardsmen rapid firing into orks would only get 1.40 wounds average. And that's only with 6+ t-shirt saves. Sounds pretty accurate to me.
in theory, you are spot on, but there are so many sources out there, e.g in the video games the troops are firing red lasers even in the day. However art work shows muzzle flashes and even blue rays of light. It all comes down to the regiment, you said you looked at the "The Ubiquitous Lasgun" section in the codex, so maybe the different according to different regiments.
i agree, being a guard player myself i get so much flak on these guns. it would make sense to have a strong, legit explanation on lasguns, how the work and what they ACTUALLY do, weather its a straight, clean hole or if , like you said, it melts them.
@Specterish A hellgun/hotshot lasgun is the nickname of more powerful lasguns designed to exclusively shoot "hotshot" rounds", the XIV pattern lasgun is insanely complex to use, needs constant maintenance and that large power back will only allow you take 200 shots until it is fully depleted due to these faults most basic troops don't like to use the hotshot lasgun and prefer the basic lasgun. Grenadiers and stormtroopers are given them due to their extra training to use them.
if you target weak spots in the enemies armor it can penetrate through it with ease. but its only if you have good aim, how you properly you adjust your weapons charge rate and how to adjust aiming
Actually if we examine the fluff, the lasgun should be fairly adept at killing things that wear light armour or none at all. Tyranids are excluded because they have exoskeletons that are supposed to shrug off bolts sometimes. We can't go by the video games as we should look at the tabletop. One lasgun could bring down a Space Marine in the tabletop... at least I'm pretty sure it could. Lasguns are weak because GW says they're weak in the fluff. In real life, I could see it killing Orkz easily.
@firelord699 One of my favourite Guard lines from DoW Retribution. "Remember! We have more numbers men!!" The only morale boost to an imperial guardsmen... unless you count execution...
Hey guys, this guardsman is Steve. Say hi, Steve! "Hai." He's weak, he's small, but he has a lot of heart when there's a gun on the back of his head. Watch him shoot his gun, jack all has happened right? Now watch what happens when he gets himself and a few buddies to place down an Imperial Guard automatic turret in the Space Marine game...
I remember,at this point in the demo,I left one shoota ork alive,to see how long it would take for the automatic flashlights to kill them.The AI spehss mehreens just stood around and didn't acknowledge the ork,while the gaurdsmen stayed shooting at it for the good part of 3 minutes on end. Very OP,as you can see.
The problem is that GW handled Tabletop to fluff terribly. Lasguns can mow down orks, but there is supposed to be so many orks that they can still get overrun.
that's why i love the warhammer 40k mod for fallout 3 and new vegas. not only do lasguns actually damage things but if you have the bloody mess perk, you get a pretty good idea of what a bolter would do to the average human body: leaving nothing of you but a red cloud and some unidentifiable chunks that might have been parts of a body at some point.
@abanofeso Truth be told, I think it's just a gameplay mechanic. In the novel Rebel Winter, to give an example, the lasguns used by the Vostroyan Firstborn are sufficiently powerful to gun down orcs, although they prove ineffective against those wearing armour. The lasfire would just heat up the metal plates and piss the armoured bastards off. All the same, I think you're right about the logistics, but the lasguns still lack the kinetic punch of a ballistic rifle.
To be honest, I know there's a lot of Lasgun models, marks and patterns out there. Yet I don't see why there's so many if they function the same. Also, when I read the Imperial Guard Codex and at the part where it showed a section called "The Ubiquitous Lasgun", it said there sought after model of lasgun and it's apparently the Triplex pattern. Can somebody clarify why this is the case. How's this lasgun model different than any other model that's out there in the 40K universe?
@killerfire23 It would be the Guardsman. And what people like to forget is that while the lasgun might not have the biggest punch it has little kick so you can hose an enemy down with full auto and also that most orks don't wear armor which means a lasgun could kill them quite fast but the reason most people make jokes about it is from time to time the IG has to face chaos marines where the lasgun does not perform very well against chaos power armor or deamons.
So, in other words, it depends on what source and what fluff material I want to use, right? Also, the way how you said how a lasgun would look like when it has been fired, I'm guessing it would look like a muzzle flash due to the fact in which with real lasers, in scientic explaination, it's an invisible focused light, right? Plus, you said it would also look like a brief red ray, right? Well then, I've sometimes seen artwork with lasguns having a blue muzzle flash, ie the artwork for the Armage
ddon wars and for the cover art for the Guants Ghosts novels. I'm only asking this because I'm planning on making a fanfiction and I just want to use the correct fluff material, and not just look like a typical noob. Anyway, thanks for the explaination dude. :) Hmm, I could say that at day it would look like a bright muzzle flash and at night, you can see the brief laser ray. That's sounds about right, right?
The Blood Angels Omnibus (Deus Encarmine) was written by James Swallow and was released before the new Blood Angels Codex. And even Matt Ward acknowledges the strength of the lasgun. Many guardsmen also set their lasguns to half power to make the most of their ammunition. Or they can fire more demanding high powered shots at the cost of ammo. Once again referring to the Gaunt's Ghosts. A single Vitrian fired a high power shot and killed a helmeted Iron Warrior, in one shot.
